I am moored once gain at Tooley's on an official private mooring, I pay to moor here! As we have seen a few posts ago I have had to line the side of my boat with tyres to stop the 'Giblets' from damaging my boat.
Most are good, some are not. There is sufficient room for two boats to pass, but even one boat often has trouble getting by. A common excuse is, "the wind caught me". This only happens if the Giblet 'hovers' rather than ties up on the ample moorings on the towpath side.
Now in order to do this properly it requires one thing! The free end of the center line needs to be at the back of the boat. It needs to be there so that one can step off the boat with the line and immediately be in control of the boat and bring it to the side. The boat of course should be close to the tow path and not Moi! There is no point having the line screwed up in a ball on the roof or even 'cheesed' next to the mid-point fixing.
To arrive from under the glass walkway (in the pic above) and come to rest against Moi is just bad form. I might have to start charging a mooring fee, £5 should be enough.
In all fairness I don't seem to get hit as much as when Kilsby wasn't there and I was alongside the wharf directly, giving the Giblets another 8 feet of space, but then I didn't have all the tyres for protection so I would have noticed it more especially as even the slightest bump showed up on the freshly painted gunnels!
So the point of this story is "Jenny B" and Mr Grumpy. Mr Grumpy was waiting for the workmen to open the bridge. Instead of mooring on the tow path (the right thing to do) he decided to come to rest against me and then went inside his boat. When the bridge opened he was nowhere to be seen! Eventually he came out. He was lined up with the bridge, so when they opened it he should have been able drive straight through, but for some reason he steered, left hand tiller, into the wall and had to take another crack at it. Reversing back he started the have a go at me, I was by this time on the back deck, I love watching these Giblets. I said nothing!
He saw me watching and offered, "The wind caught me".
"Well you should have tied up on the other side and the wind wouldn't have been a problem."
And then it came, "Well you shouldn't be moored there".
"Oh", says I, "Like I didn't see that coming. You have 16 feet of space and I am to blame because you can't drive a boat?"
"I am getting pissed of with people like you on the canal," he said.
Note: I am properly moored on a private mooring and 'I' am the reason he cant drive his boat.
His next obstacle after this 16 foot space, and the 10 foot wide bridge hole, is an 8 foot wide lock and he made a fuck up of that!
So now and for evermore I will be the evil genie in the story that he makes up that he will tell to anyone that will listen, and my crime? I was moored up minding my own business! If you should come across him please, please point him to this page.
PS Hire boat just came through, absolute text book driving. Moored on the tow path side brought the boat to a halt using the Center line and waited quietly for the bridge to open.
PPS 14:10 Jenny B came past, passing in the opposite direction. Said he wanted to apologize, and signaled me over, I was standing on the wharf under a shelter out of the rain. For one I wasn't going to get wet, for another I don't trust angry Giblets.